The one's I've found that are not 'disarticulated' are almost always closed, but I do not have a huge sample to go on and am not a paleontologist or avid fossil digger. I've also talked to others who collect fossils, and they say the same thing. But all this I freely admit is basically hearsay (just as your claim is), so if you have a study of some sort to support your claim I would be interested in it. If it is not true that most are not closed, I really would like to know about it so that I no longer use the word "most" in my talks.

I never said "most" are not closed; just that clam fossils are found closed, open, and broken apart. I've found them each way; it depends on the depositional environment.

In fact, there is a specific rock type that is made of broken clam and snail shells:

Also, you are exagerating that rapid burial of marine life is happening "all the time all over the world". I would also be interested to see you support this, especially clear evidence of marine life being buried alive since we know this is the way it generally happened in the past.

Here are some links that mention recent (since the 1890's) observed submarine landslides:

Link4 mentions 7 documented submarine landslides in Puget Sound alone since the 1890's. The other links mention submarine landslides off of Newfoundland, Alaska, Hawaii, and New Guinea.

Anything on the seafloor that was in the path of these landslides was buried instaneously.

Submarine landslides are just one mechanism for rapid burial. Large rivers in flood dump huge amounts of sediments into their deltas, and coastal storms erode beaches and build new sandbars overnight. All of these can cause rapid burial, under the right circumstances.

. . . . See, these oysters that are 10ft across are not only found on top of Mt. Everest, but they are also petrified in the CLOSED position! When an oyster or clam dies, it always opens up, unless buried by sediments and petrified quickly. . . .

Data correction:

1. There are lots of broken pieces of clam shell and very few complete whole fossil shells.

This doesn't explain why we almost always find clams in the closed position. This is clear, undeniable evidence that they were buried alive, not slowly. I found this out from experience (no, I wasn't buried alive ). The first time my family and I went to the beach we picked up all kinds of seashells and brought them back to our room. A little while later the things started to stink! We found out that the closed ones were still alive. When they die, they invariably open up.

I've pulled many a marine fossil out of roadcuts. You can find them all over the place. Blocks of rock filled with marine fossils, and the clams are almost always closed. They were buried rapidly, and since we find these marine fossils all over the world, probably even in your backyard, this is powerful evidence for a global flood.

Fred

Not to beat an issue too hard, but people have to understand the facts before making interpretations. You have to get the facts right.

Maybe your particular clam species, when lying on a hotel desk or bathroom sink, always opens up, however, 'invariably' is not accurate. I have found closed dead clams in ponds, on beaches, and in the saltwater tank at the grocery store. When clams are dead long enough for the connective tissue between shells to break down, they open easily if disturbed. Are they always disturbed? Some species live partially or entirely buried in mud. How could these open up when they die? The surrounding sediment holds them closed. They don't have to be buried rapidly at death if they lived buried. The scallop shells, the Shell gas station logo, swim around by opening and closing the shells. You very rarely find both halves of these shells.

Show me one example of hundreds of meters of limestone forming in one year. The fact of the matter is that the carbonate that makes up limestone comes from organisms. It also takes time for the limestone to lithify. There is simply not enough time in the "Flood Year" for this to happen.As an analogy, find a rug and push on the edge of the rug parallel with the floor below it. What you find is that ridges form on the rug. This is what happened to the entire Himilayas. To form limestone you need flat areas under water. What the collision of the Indian and Asian plates caused was up lift and ridge formation. Mt. Everest is still moving 27 millimeters per year towards the center of Asia as the Indian Plate continues to force it's way in that same direction. The Himilayas themselves are still growing upwards at 2.4 inches a year. There is a good overview here.

A simple analysis: 2.4 inches per year is a foot every 4 to 5 years. Mt Everest is more than 25000 feet high. 4 x 25000 is 100000 years for the top of Everest to get this far above sea level, at current uplift rates. The usual YEC claim is that the earth is about 6000 years old. 100000 / 6000 is about 17 times faster than the uplift observed today, ignoring erosion and other factors. Is this reasonable?

The usual YEC claim is that the earth is about 6000 years old. 100000 / 6000 is about 17 times faster than the uplift observed today, ignoring erosion and other factors. Is this reasonable?

Could be. No one has demonstrated that the rate of geological change we observe today has remained constant through time. If one accepts the uniformitarianist view that processes have always worked at the rates we observe today, then the YE claim is prima facie unreasonable. The trouble is that such an assumptiuon is not supported by observation. But it is a necessary postulate if one wishes to assign great age to the earth.

Could be. No one has demonstrated that the rate of geological change we observe today has remained constant through time. If one accepts the uniformitarianist view that processes have always worked at the rates we observe today, then the YE claim is prima facie unreasonable.Ã‚Â The trouble is that such an assumptiuon is not supported by observation. But it is a necessary postulate if one wishes to assign great age to the earth.

Could be, is a reasonable response. I am not aware of any evidence that suggests geologic processes operated in the past at rates much different than what we see today - in which case, the 100,000 year minimum is more reasonable than 6000 years.

However, you don't have to accept a uniformitarianist view, or any other view, if there is data to look at. Does anybody here know of any geologic process rate evidence?

No one has demonstrated that the rate of geological change we observe today has remained constant through time. If one accepts the uniformitarianist view that processes have always worked at the rates we observe today, then the YE claim is prima facie unreasonable. The trouble is that such an assumptiuon is not supported by observation. But it is a necessary postulate if one wishes to assign great age to the earth.

Rates for things like erosion, deposition, and plate movement vary today; it's likely they varied in the past, too. And the bigger a time frame we the look at, the more likely it is we will see the rare, big extremes.

But do you have any evidence that the rates were orders of magnitude higher or lower in the past, all over the world?

There is plenty of evidence that geologic processes in the past operated the same way, at similar rates, as they do today.

Could be. No one has demonstrated that the rate of geological change we observe today has remained constant through time. If one accepts the uniformitarianist view that processes have always worked at the rates we observe today, then the YE claim is prima facie unreasonable. The trouble is that such an assumptiuon is not supported by observation. But it is a necessary postulate if one wishes to assign great age to the earth.

This type of uniformitarianism was dropped many, many, years ago. It pretty much died with Lyell in the 1800's. Uniformitarianism is defined nowadays as the same mechanisms that are acting now acted in the past. We all know that different rivers form deltas at different rates, that limestone accumulates differently in different places, etc. The only problem is that the pattern that floods leave do not resemble the pattern we see in the geologic column. Never has a flood made separate limestone, sandstone, paleosol, and shale layers. Floods leave a thick, muddy, silty layer. We can't find this type of layer that would represent a wolrd wide flood. Therefore, through uniformitarianism, a global flood is falsified.

ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s the thing about extra human time scales, it doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have to be happening all the time to end up with a huge accumulation of fossil clam beds. Just as a completely off the top of my head scenario let say a major siltation event happens every 10 years. Say 1 square mile of clam beds gets covered instantly (earthquakes, undersea landslides, local floods, whatever) ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s about 40,000,000 square miles of clam beds since they came on the scene. ThatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a whole heap of fossilized calms.

Well I guess just like the flood happening about 4000 years ago. Must be one of those things. But then again, it can't be a possibility because it supports God and not science.

Rates for things like erosion, deposition, and plate movement vary today; it's likely they varied in the past, too.Ã‚Â And the bigger a time frame we the look at, the more likely it is we will see the rare, big extremes.

But do you have any evidence that the rates were orders of magnitude higher or lower in the past, all over the world?Ã‚Â

There is plenty of evidence that geologic processes in the past operated the same way, at similar rates, as they do today.

I noticed none of the wording you used were as per say: proof positive on your account to the evidence you present. But then you ask a question, as if you want proof positve evidence from a creationist when I don't even see that applied from your end.

But do you have any evidence that the rates were orders of magnitude higher or lower in the past, all over the world?Ã‚Â

If the creationist's answer contained such words as: indicate, more likely, likely they varied in the past, etc... Would you take what they said as proof positive over what you just said? But yet you think this is more viable evidence with the wording as such? Sounds like a bunch of speculation, but I guess it's all good because it denies the creationist view.

So were the clams found on that mountain the burrower type? Or could this be an assumption?

I made no assumptions. If you reread my posts, you will notice that I presented several ways that clams could be buried in the closed position, in addition to them being burrowers. Also, my response was directed to Fred, who was talking about clams he has found, not the "oysters on everest", as mentioned in the OP. (And oysters are not burrowers).

My point is that closed clams, in and of themselves, are NOT evidence for THE flood, because there are other ways it can happen.

If you want to argue for THE flood, you need more evidence than that.

I noticed none of the wording you used were as per say: proof positive on your account to the evidence you present. But then you ask a question, as if you want proof positve evidence from a creationist when I don't even see that applied from your end.

But do you have any evidence that the rates were orders of magnitude higher or lower in the past, all over the world?Ã‚Â

If the creationist's answer contained such words as: indicate, more likely, likely they varied in the past, etc... Would you take what they said as proof positive over what you just said? But yet you think this is more viable evidence with the wording as such? Sounds like a bunch of speculation, but I guess it's all good because it denies the creationist view.

Maybe the thread should be renamed to: How to speculate thread.

If you reread my posts, you will see that I never asked anyone for proof positive; I asked for EVIDENCE (which you appear either unwilling or unable to provide).

I will be happy to provide evidence for any of my "indicates", "likelys" etc. if you like.

As has been said by myself and others numerous times, science does not provide "proof" in the sense of a mathematical proof. It's about the best interpretation of the evidence. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is about the best science can do.

In science, all interpretations are provisional; subject to reevaluation when new evidence comes up. You seem to feel that this is somehow an "imperfection" or "weakness" of science and the scientific method.

In reality, it is the reason why we no longer consider disease to be the work of demons, or believe in Ptolemaic idea of the solar system.

But you evaded the questions-

Do you have any evidence that the rates of geological processes were significantly different in the past?

How do you interpret the varves found in the Green River formation- indicating millions of years- as described in my first link?

How do you interpret the evidence that the rates of plate movement have been fairly constant- for millions of years- as described in my second link?

Ã¢â‚¬Å“That Ã¢â‚¬Ëœs not an unreasonable scenario. Except, the flood was a local event (or an undersea landslide) and the process took millions of years.Ã¢â‚¬Â

Well, thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s no evidence for a world-wide flood, but local floods( and undersea landslides ) happen all the time. Any number of paleontology and geology sites can give the evidence for the time frames.

Well I guess just like the flood happening about 4000 years ago. Must be one of those things. But then again, it can't be a possibility because it supports God and not science.

The only thing the evidence supports either way it the plausibility of one story from the Bible. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m able and willing to understand that even if I could falsify every story in the bible (and as you can see from my avatar, I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have the ambition for that much work), it wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t be the first bit of proof against the existence of God.

The only group who seem to think that if one part of the Bible could be interpreted as myth it would make the whole of Christianity fall like a house of cards is the fundamentalists.

If there were one thing I would like to change your mind about, it surprisingly would not be your view of creation; it is that our goal is not to disprove God, only to get the science as accurate as humanly possible.

The only thing the evidence supports either way it the plausibility of one story from the Bible. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m able and willing to understand that even if I could falsify every story in the bible (and as you can see from my avatar, I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have the ambition for that much work), it wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t be the first bit of proof against the existence of God.

Actually, there are several flood stories from different parts of the world.

The only group who seem to think that if one part of the Bible could be interpreted as myth it would make the whole of Christianity fall like a house of cards is the fundamentalists.

Well I guess you'd have to call me one. But the only reason I say the whole bible has to be truth, is because God is supposed to be the representation of what truth is. Question: What are the requirements for being Holy? And is that not what God is supposed to be?

If there were one thing I would like to change your mind about, it surprisingly would not be your view of creation; it is that our goal is not to disprove God, only to get the science as accurate as humanly possible.

Accuracy takes absolutes to achieve. Definition:1 : freedom from mistake or error : correctness (need not to be corrected even with new evidence).2 a : conformity to truth or to a standard or model : exactness b : degree of conformity of a measure to a standard or a true value Ã¢â‚¬â€ compare precision 2a

And about the science of creation. Creation is what God has done. Creation is because God is. So if science is going to change it, then they would have to admit to a God in order to do it. But, I don't see that ever happening. Do you?

And until science admits to a Creator, they should keep their nose out of creation.